Commentaria in Numeros
22 and 23. TO SEHON, KING OF THE AMORRHITES, SAYING: I BESEECH THEE THAT I MAY PASS THROUGH THY LAND, etc.; WHO WOULD NOT GRANT IT.—In Deuteronomy, chapter 2, verse 24 and following, where these things are narrated more fully, God is said to have hardened Sehon, that he should not give passage. For God willed to give the region of Sehon, like that of Og king of Basan, to the Israelites: for He had promised to give both to the Hebrews, Genesis 15:20. For there by the land of the Raphaim He understands the land of Og the giant. It is to be noted, says St. Augustine, Question 40, “how just were the wars waged here by the Hebrews: for an innocent passage was denied to them, which by the most equitable law of human society ought to have lain open”; although this was only the pretext and occasion of the war. For the true cause was the promise and gift of God, of which I have already spoken.
23 and 24. AND HE (Sehon) FOUGHT AGAINST HIM (Israel), AND WAS SLAIN BY HIM WITH THE EDGE OF THE SWORD—that is, on the edge of the sword. For the edge is to the sword what the mouth is to a man. Secondly, “in the mouth,” that is, in slaughter, that is, by the slaughter of the sword; so the Septuagint. For as the mouth devours bread, so the sword devours, slays and consumes men.
24. AND THEY POSSESSED (by Israel) HIS (Sehon’s) LAND FROM ARNON UNTO JEBOC, AND THE CHILDREN OF AMMON: BECAUSE THE BORDERS OF THE AMMONITES WERE HELD WITH A STRONG GARRISON.—Note “because”: as if to say, The Israelites, occupying the dominion of Sehon, did not invade the neighbouring Ammonites, but stopped there, because the Ammonites had fortified themselves with a strong garrison against the Israelites. There was also another and stronger cause, namely that God had forbidden them to be attacked, as is plain from Deuteronomy 2:19.
25. ISRAEL THEREFORE TOOK (took from Sehon, and transferred into his own dominion) ALL THE CITIES OF HIM, AND DWELT IN THE CITIES OF THE AMORRHITE (by that division among the twelve tribes which will be recounted in chapter 32), IN HESEBON, TO WIT, AND IN THE VILLAGES THEREOF.—In Hebrew, and in its daughters. For the Hebrews call the cities and villages subject to a metropolis daughters, by metaphor, because they depend on their metropolis as daughters on a mother.
26. THE CITY OF HESEBON WAS THE CITY OF SEHON KING OF THE AMORRHITES, WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE KING OF MOAB,—and by fighting wrested from him Hesebon and the rest of his cities as far as Arnon, as is plain from the Hebrew. Moses here silently meets an objection; for someone will say: How did the Hebrews occupy Hesebon, a city of the Moabites, when God had forbidden them to fight against the Moabites? He answers that Hesebon was no longer of the Moabites, but of the Amorrhites: for Sehon had taken it from them by right of war, by which, by the law of nations, dominion is transferred, as by sale, as is plain from the Digest, De justitia et jure, in the law Ex hoc jure. Hence, nevertheless, the king of Moab, after three hundred years, laid claim to a title of recovering Hesebon and these other cities from Jephte; but Jephte rightly answered him, first, that he had received them not from the Moabites but from the Amorrhites; secondly, that he had possessed them peaceably for three hundred years, and so claimed them for himself by title of prescription; and when the king of Moab and Ammon would not acquiesce, but sought to recover them by arms, he was routed and crushed by Jephte, as is plain from Judges 11. So Abulensis.
27. THEREFORE IT IS SAID IN THE PROVERB: COME INTO HESEBON.—This proverb is a proverbial song, or epinicion, such as soldiers or other rhymers are wont to compose upon cities or enemies overcome, especially in triumph, such as that concerning David conquering Goliath: “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” 1 Kings 18.
LET THE CITY OF SEHON BE BUILT AND SET UP—as if to say: Let the city of Hesebon be built, which, taken from the Moabites, was captured and laid waste by Sehon king of the Amorrhites, that Sehon might establish in it a royal seat for himself and the Amorrhites. For from verse 30 it is clear that the Moabites had held dominion over the city of Hesebon, and had in it their garrison soldiers; but Sehon cut them down and drove them out, and made himself absolute king of Hesebon, and from thence like a fire crept forth, and burned and laid waste and subjected to himself all Moabitis. See Jeremias 48:45; whence there follows:
28. A FIRE IS GONE OUT OF HESEBON, A FLAME FROM THE CITY OF SEHON, AND HATH CONSUMED AR OF THE MOABITES, AND THE LORDS (who dwelt on high places) OF THE HIGH PLACES OF ARNON—as if to say: The victory, oppression and overthrow of Sehon, laying waste the whole of Hesebon, spread abroad on every side, as far as the city Ar, which is in Moab, and as far as Arnon, which borders on it. Here, then, Hesebon is called the city of Sehon, as of the conqueror; for according to the manner of Hebrew and poetic rhythm, this verse says and repeats the same thing in other words; for “a fire is gone out of Hesebon” is the same as “a flame from the city of Sehon.”
29. WOE TO THEE, MOAB, THOU ART UNDONE, O PEOPLE OF CHAMOS.—As if to say: You are undone, O Moabites, who worship the idol Chamos, 3 Kings 11:5; nor could your Chamos deliver you from this slaughter.
Note: Sehon did not destroy or subdue all the Moabites: for Balac at the same time still reigned in Moab, as will be said in the next chapter, verse 4; but he destroyed only Hesebon and the places near it, and their inhabitants, before subject to the Moabites.
Those skilled in languages think that Chamos was Bacchus, god of drunkenness, and from this the Greek kômos and the Latin comessari and comedia are derived. See what was said on Romans 13:13.
HE HATH GIVEN—namely Chamos, that is, he permitted the sons of Moab, devoted to him, to be given up, taken and slain by Sehon king of the Amorrhites.
30. THEIR YOKE (of the Moabites, which they had laid upon the inhabitants of Hesebon) HATH PERISHED FROM HESEBON UNTO DIBON.—The Chaldee translates: the kingdom ceased from Hesebon, power was taken away from Dibon. The Hebrew has: the lamp, that is, the glory of their kingdom, of the Moabites, hath perished from Hesebon.
THE WEARY ARE COME TO NOPHE—weary, namely, from flight. For the Hebrew is, fugitives (namely from the slaughter inflicted on Hesebon by Sehon) came to Nophe. For the Hebrew nashim, if written with sin, which is the same as samech, signifies fugitives; if written with shin, it signifies wives; and so the Septuagint read it. Thirdly, the Chaldees and the more recent derive nashim from shamam, that is, he made desolate, laid waste, and translate, we have laid waste, namely Moab as far as Nophe. Here ends the rhythm, or song of victory, concerning the capture of Hesebon and Moab by Sehon.
33 and 35. OG KING OF BASAN CAME TO MEET THEM, etc.: SO THEY SLEW HIM ALSO WITH HIS SONS, AND ALL HIS PEOPLE, TO UTTER DESTRUCTION—so, namely, that they left none alive remaining, as the Hebrew and Septuagint have it. Masius notes on Josue 12 that the Chaldee commonly translates Basan as Matan or Matanan, because it put the letter mem for beth (for both are labial letters, and therefore akin and interchangeable), which is not unusual among the Greeks also. Secondly, for shin it put tau, which is usual with the Chaldees.
Hear here, and laugh at, the pleasant, or rather stupid, fable of the Talmudists concerning the immense size of this Og and his slaughter. Og, they say, was a huge giant who, when the Hebrews approached, uprooted a mountain of two leagues and placed it on his head, that with one cast of this mountain he might overwhelm all the Hebrews; but God sent ants, which, boring through the mountain, made it come down as far as Og’s shoulders; presently, his teeth growing to ten cubits, he could not cast the mountain from himself. Moses, seeing this, who was ten cubits tall, took an axe of ten cubits, and leaped upon Og to a height of ten cubits, and reached the joint of his shin with the foot, and there struck and killed him, the mountain falling upon him at the same time. So great was the bulk of Og that a stag, entering the shin of his dead body, wandered in it the half of a day, in which time the hunter pursued it in that shin. Lyranus and Abulensis relate these things, Question 27. See here how true of the Jews is that saying of David, Psalm 68:23: “Let their table become as a snare before them, and a recompense, and a stumblingblock. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not.”